Thingamabobs

EVENTS

I love my Dad

Here’s his reaction to finding out the city council where he and my mom live are praying to Jesus:

It has come to my attention that the Constitution is being threatened in Lady Lake, Florida. For you who have never heard of Lady Lake, it is part of a retirement development known as The Villages. The average inhabitant is about 70+ years old. It’s a great place if you love golf and living an active lifestyle. However, it should be no surprise that it’s prime tea-bag party area. The local newspaper’s favorite columnist is Ollie North, a convicted felon. It also should come as no surprise that the local city council starts every meeting with a secular prayer. The city council says its’ prayer is not meant to favor any one religion, in spite of the fact that they usually end with, “in Jesus’ name we pray”. They also claim they are doing nothing illegal, since the meeting doesn’t officially start until the prayer is completed.

Although I am not surprised by this development, since most of the residences are gun nuts, religious zealots, and war mongers, but I have found that there are also some sane people. I play tennis with a group of guys who are surprisingly liberal. Recently, they asked my opinion on Huckabee for President, and I issued a disclaimer that I was an atheist and I considered all right wing religious politicians as the vanguard for the American Taliban. Instead of stoning me, they wanted to know more about my opinions. I told them, When I am King, people will be able to express their religious beliefs freely in church and their home, but will have to keep their mouth zipped in public. There will be no tax deductions for churches and you will no longer be able to run for office claiming God told you to do it. Everyone knows there is only one god — The Golf God — and he has plenty of bad golf swings in The Villages to keep him/her busy without taking on politics.

I’m becoming convinced that snark is a heritable trait. Quick, someone do a genetic analysis!

So I’m really curious about this tax deductions for churches thing that you and your dad have referenced, do you have any old posts about it with more info? or any other links that might be good reading?

Well, churches are non-profit organizations, and are free from taxes like pretty much any other non-profit, such as real charities (Red Cross), community organizations (perhaps the local co-op), etc . Thus they do not have to pay taxes on corporate profits to the federal government. However, part of the non-profit requirement (in the USA) are that the organization not do much in the way of politics. For example, the UFW (United Farm Workers) cannot be non-profit because they lobby for political change. Many churches seem to leap over that line without the same scrutiny as other NPOs.Church employees can also be exempted from payroll taxes (but that means they are also exempt from the government benefits those taxes pay for) and ministers can often exempt a “housing allowance” from their income which amounts to double deductions for mortgage interest and tax deductible status for much of the money they spend on their house, which normal taxpayers cannot take advantage of.http://www.irs.gov/charities/c…http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq/0,…from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…“Individual states and localities offer nonprofits exemptions from other taxes such as sales tax or property tax. “